The most familiar forms of conventional television systems are broadcast television, cable television, and satellite television. In broadcast television, the video signal is broadcast from a central antenna to distantly located TV antennas at individual homes. In cable television, the television signals are transmitted over a coaxial cable that is fed into subscribing homes. The cable is connected to a set-top box which typically sits on top of the television set. Cable television includes both programs produced specially for cable as well as programs traditionally found in the broadcast environment. In satellite television, video signals are transmitted from a station on earth to an orbiting satellite and then retransmitted back to many individual homes that are equipped with an appropriate satellite receiver.
In each of these conventional forms of television systems, the viewer is a passive audience with no control of the content on the programming being displayed. Rather, the viewer only has control over which channels to watch.
In recent years, there has been tremendous strides toward interactive television systems where the viewer is able to actively participate in the programming content. In this forum, it is envisioned that viewers will have the ability to watch conventional programming as well as movie-on-demand in their own homes. "Movie-on-demand" means that a viewer can watch a video movie any time he/she wishes, as opposed to being restricted to scheduled times as is common in fee-based programming (such as Pay-Per-View.TM.), or in premiere cable programming (such as HBO.RTM. and SHOWTIME.RTM.).
In the movie-on-demand mode of interactive television, the viewer is expected to have control over the video stream being transmitted to the set-top box. It is desirable that the viewer have similar control as he/she would have when operating a video cassette recorder (VCR). Conventional VCRs have standard "shuttle controls" which control how the video movie is played on the television. Example shuttle controls include "rewind," "play," "fast forward," "stop," "pause," and "record."
It is an object of this invention to provide a video control user interface that can be employed in an interactive television system to assist the viewer in controlling viewing of a video movie.
Many people are accustomed to operating a VCR to control viewing of a cassette-based video movie. The VCR has shuttle control buttons on the front panel. Most VCRs also come with a remote control handset that permits the viewer to operate the VCR from a remote location. The shuttle control buttons are typically arranged in a horizontal row across the handset in the same arrangement as the front panel. One common arrangement is to have the "play" and "stop" buttons lie between the "fast forward" and "rewind" buttons.
FIG. 1 shows a prior art remote control handset 10 for remotely operating a VCR wherein the shuttle control buttons are arranged in a non-linear, oval pattern. This particular handset 10 accompanies a commercially available VCR sold by Panasonic.RTM. under model number AG-1290p. Of particular interest, handset 10 has a set of buttons dedicated to shuttle control. These buttons include a "PLAY" button 12, a fast forward or "FF" button 14, a "STOP" button 16, and a rewind or "REW" button 18. These primary shuttle control buttons are arranged in an oval pattern and are specifically used only for the associated shuttle controls; they have no other function. In addition to these buttons, handset 10 includes other function specific buttons. Notable among these buttons are up/down channel buttons 20, a dedicated pause button 22, and a record button 24.
While the handset 10 provides all of the primary VCR functions, it requires viewers to divert their eyes from the television screen to the handset when ordering a change. It would be desirable to provide a more convenient user interface that permits a viewer to intuitively manipulate the handset while viewing the television screen.
Another drawback to handset 10 of FIG. 1 is that all of the buttons are specifically dedicated to shuttle controls and other functions. None of the buttons in this example handset are multi-purpose. Some commercially available remote control handsets attempt to combine shuttle controls with other television control buttons, like a full numeric keypad or volume control buttons. These full service handsets tend to be longer, more bulky, and not very convenient to operate. It is also difficult to hunt and find a particular button on a handset which has many dedicated buttons.
In the interactive television environment, there is considerably more opportunity for viewer involvement and a greater range of programming options. Remote control handsets will therefore be asked to provide multiple different functions, including television control, channel selection, movie-on-demand, and menu management. Depending upon the mode of operation, the same buttons might be required to perform different tasks.
It is therefore another object of this invention to provide a video control user interface that works intuitively with a remote control handset having multipurpose buttons that function differently when operated in different modes.